Appam

Kerala Style Appam (വെള്ളയപ്പം  or പാലപ്പം)

If you ask anyone from outside Kerala, what is their favorite Kerala dish, chances are that you will hear appams as the answer. Traditionally, Appams are used as a breakfast dish in Kerala. Appam with egg curry or appam with stew, be it vegetable stew or chicken stew or mutton stew, is a favorite breakfast combination.

But outside Kerala, most of the Kerala restaurants serve appams at any time of the day. You can have appams for breakfast, lunch or dinner.


Traditionally appams are made in two different varieties. Today I am going to cover what is known as vellayappam (വെള്ളയപ്പം) or paalappam (പാലപ്പം). I will describe the easiest way of preparing appams so that anyone can try it at home.

Ingredients:
Rice                    2 cups
Boiled rice          1/2 cup
Grated coconut   3/4 cup
Yeast                  1/2 tsp
Sugar                 1 tbsp
Salt                    as needed
Water                 as needed

Method of preparation: 
1) Sock the rice in water for 3 to 4 hours. Add the remaining items and grind all of them together. Add water to the dough until the dough is consistently thick, not too watery or not too thick while poring it.

2) Keep the dough overnight for fermentation. When it gets fermented, it almost doubles up in quantity. So make sure you are keeping the batter in a vessel that is big enough for the batter.

3) The shape of the appam comes from the shape of the vessel used for preparing the appams. Use a deep round bottomed pan, which is called 'appam pan'. Heat the pan on the stove. Use some oil only if it is a not non-stick pan. (I regularly use the non-stick pan, and hence do not use oil).

4) Pour a ladle full of the dough into the pan. Lift the pan, tilt and turn it in a full circle so that the dough spreads uniformly into the sides. Keep the pan back on the flame and cover it with a lid. Because of the shape of the pan, most of the dough will settle in the middle, thus leaving the sides in a lacy design and the center thick.

5) The appam will be ready in a couple of minutes. Serve it hot with your favorite side dish.

Notes: 

1. Traditionally appams are fermented with kallu (toddy - the alcoholic drink from coconut trees or palm trees). In this recipe I have used yeast, since toddy is not widely available. However the appams fermented with toddy has a special taste.
2. Half cup of boiled rice is added to the rice before grinding it, this will help the appams to be softer. However, if the amount of boiled rice is more, chances are that the appams will turn more sticky.
3. Keep the batter overnight for fermentation. Now if the weather is too cold, it might be a good idea to use look-warm water to prepare the batter.
4. You can add coconut water instead of normal water, that will help fermentation. And with coconut water the appams will taste better.

Kappa Villayichathu (കപ്പ വിളയിച്ചത്)

Kappa Villayichathu (കപ്പ  വിളയിച്ചത്)

Have you ever wondered what kind of snacks our parents and grandparents devoured before the packets of junk food from the nearest super market started appearing on our dining tables ? For this week, I would like to write about something that our new generation wouldn't have ever heard of. Or for that matter many of us wouldn't have tasted it for many years. For me this is something that takes me back to my childhood, those rainy days of Karkkidakam when it used to rain 24 hours every day. The rain stops only to start again. And it always looks like the heaven is connected to the the earth by a ten thousand silver strings swaying with the wind. And that smell from the kitchen.. Grandma is busy with roasting the cashew nuts left over from last summer or preparing that crispy roasted tapioca. Ah... what a combination hot coffee and kappa villayichatu.. That's what I wanted to write about today, a crispy, mouth watering tea time snack made out of dried tapioca.

Another thing that I still remember is, once you prepare this dish, you can keep it for many days in an airtight jar and it will continue to be crispy. For that matter it was the chips-equivalent of olden times.

This is how the traditional version of it looks like, though you can prepare it in many different forms.

There are two steps in preparing this snack. The first one is preparing the dried version tapioca, typically done during the summer. (This was our forefather's technique of preserving the tapioca for the rainy days). The second step is deep frying the dry tapioca in oil. Below are the detailed steps.

1. Preparation of dry tapioca:
Clean the tapioca by removing the brown and pink layers of outer skin. Slice the tapioca into thin pieces, preferably in square shape. Refer to the picture above for the shape. Cook it in boiled water until the tapioca becomes half cooked (you can make this out when the tapioca becomes soft). Drain the water and sun dry the tapioca until it loses all the water content. Typically it takes three days of hot sun to get the tapioca really dry. Note that the pieces will be real hard when it is dry. People prepare dried tapioca in different shapes for different purposes. This particular shape of thin squares is for preparing snack items. It is ready to be preserved for the rainy season. Olden days people used to keep this for the entire year, until they are ready to harvest the next year.

2. Frying  the tapioca (കപ്പ  വിളയിക്കൽ)
Ingredients:
Dried tapioca                            1cup ( Need to deep fry this in oil);
Rice powder (red/white)           ½ cup;
Jaggiry syrup                             As needed

2.1 Frying the tapioca



Deep fry the dried tapioca in a pan. This is sometimes referred to as avilu kappa. Sometimes you can eat this fried tapioca just fried. If you want to eat it that way, adding salt and a bit of turmeric powder (by making a small pouch of turmeric powder in a cotton cloth and keeping it immersed in the oil to be fried) would be a good idea. You can also grind the deep fried tapioca, mix it with sugar/jagiry and coconut to make another delicious dish called avalosu podi.


2.2 Preparing the rice powder
Take rice in clay pot, keep it on flame, while stirring it well with wooden spoon until its color turns golden brown. To this add 3 cardamom, allow it to cool, grind in a mixer well to make a fine powder.

2.3 Preparing the snack
Take one vessel or plate and spread the fried kappa pieces in this. Spread the rice powder on top of this, so as to cover the tapioca pieces. Now pour the jaggiry syrup on top of this while the syrup is hot. Mix all together. Refer to the picture below. Your snack is ready. You can keep it in an airtight jar for many days. Refer to the picture below.

Bonda (Kayappam)

Bonda (Kayappam) with banana

Here is  another easy evening snack from Kerala. The main ingredient of this snack in plantain (ഞാലി പൂവൻ പഴം) variety of banana. In some parts of Kerala, this snack is also called kayappam (കായപ്പം).

Ingredients:
Banana             4 no., peeled;
Cardamom       2 no.;
Maida               3 table spoons;
Sugar                as needed;
Salt                   one pinch;
Water                as needed;


Method of preparation
Grind banana with cardamom, sugar and salt,make in to a fine paste using a mixer. Optionally we can smash banana with hand as well, but a mixer would give a fine paste, which helps in preparing very soft bonda. Add wheat flour (maida) to the above paste and mix well with hand. Add sufficient quantity of water, making sure that the mixture is thick.

Heat oil in a pan. When the oil is boiling hot, pour a small quantity of the above mixture with your hands. Deep fry until the color turns brown. Take out once cooked and keep it aside until the oil is drained.Your banana bonda is ready to serve !!

Jack fruit seeds with cabbage (ചക്കക്കുരു - കാബേജ് തോരൻ)

Jackfruit was a part of the healthy diet that many Keralites followed in the past. Unfortunately it is disappearing from the dining table off late. Keralites make many healthy and delicious dishes with different parts of the raw jack fruit as well as the fruit itself. In this recipe, let us make a very common but tasty side dish using the jack fruit seed and cabbage. The jack fruit seed is rich in starch and proteins, and make a delicious dish. Traditionally this is known as “chakkakkuru cabbage thoran” (ചക്കക്കുരു - കാബേജ് തോരൻ) in Kerala.

One common complaint about dishes made out of Jack fruit seeds causes gas trouble. There is an easy and healthy solution for this, remove only the white outer skin of the seeds and retain the brown covering inside.

Another thing that I wanted to mention here is that you can make similar recipes with other vegetables like snake-gourd, if you replace cabbage with snake gourd.

Ingredients (this will serve approximately 8 people):

1) chakkakkuru (jack fruit seed)      250gm

2) cabbage                                      200 gm

2) onion                                          (1) chopped well

    ginger                                          small piece, chopped well

    green chilly                                  (3) chopped into small pieces

    fresh coconut                              1/2 medium-sized, grated

    salt                                              As needed

3) coconut oil                                  1 tbsp

4) mustard seeds                             1 tsp

5) curry leaves                                 1 spring.

Method of preparation:

1) Remove the outer skin of chakkakkuru, (you can choose not to remove brown skin for a healthy preparation). Chop into small pieces and wash well.

2) Chop the cabbage nicely into small pieces (before chopping, it is advised to soak it water with turmeric powder and salt for an hour to remove any poison).

3) Take chakkakkuru in a vessel mixed with 2^nd items, keep it in flame till half cooked. Then add cabbage to this, keep it in low flame till it cooked well.

4) Heat oil in a pan and sprinkle in mustard seeds. When they start sputtering add curry leaves, stir well. Add the above mixture to the curry and stir well.

Your dish is ready to serve !

Tapioca Biriyani (Kappa Biriyani, കപ്പ ബിരിയാണി)

Have you ever attended a wedding eve function in North Kerala ? In many parts of North Kerala the special item served for the wedding eve get-together is something called 'Kappa biriyani' (കപ്പ ബിരിയാണി) which is made out of tapioca and beef with bones.

We can prepare kappa biriyani with many vegetarian and non-vegetarian items like Bengal Grams (കടല), Green grams, Fish (മത്തി , നത്തോലി), chicken and beef. In this post, I would give the recipe for making the dish with beef. I felt this is the super combination compared to all others. It makes me very excited write this one as it is one of my favorite dishes.

To make kappa biriyani, we can use both fresh and the dried variety of tapioca. However, if you are using the dry variety, then remember to soak it in water for a few hours before preparing the dish). Both varieties are tasty. In this recipe I have specified the fresh tapioca.  I would say that both are equally tasty. (One word of caution: if you are on a watch out for cholesterol, beware of the the beef).

Ingredients:
1) Kappa                           1 kg (peel the skin out, cut into small cube pieces and wash well)

2) Coconut                        1 cup, grated (use fried coconut or fresh one, here I have used fresh one. Fried one is more tastier than fresh coconut)
    Small onion                   6 no;
    Garlic                            3 cloves;
    Chilli powder                 ½ tsp(part of powder used in beef preparation)
    Jeera (perumjeerakam)  1 tsp;
    Curry leaves                   1 ½ spring;
    Salt                                 As needed
    Turmeric powder            As needed

3) Beef with bones (specially ribs and belly mixed)   1 kg (cut in to small cube pieces)
 
4) Onion (big)                 1 no(chopped well)
    Small onion                 6 no
    Ginger and garlic        (smashed or cut in to pieces)

5) Chilli powder              1 tsp;
    Coriander powder       2 tsp;
    Turmeric powder        As needed;
    Garam Masala            ¼  tsp;
    Curry leaves

Method of preparation:

1) Peel the tapioca, removing both the layers of brown and white skin. Cut tapioca into small cube pieces. Wash well and boil it until cooked. Drain the water.
2) Grind the items under (2). Grind only coarse and not in to a paste.
3) Heat oil in a pan and add chilli powder and coriander powder (from the items listed under 5), stir well until the color turns into brown. To this add garam masala and curry leaves. Stir well and then switch of the flame.
4) Cut the beef into small cube-shaped pieces. Cook the beef using a pressure cooker. For this put the beef in a cooker, along with the paste from the above step. Make sure  that the beef is well cooked. You might have to wait for 4  whistles or more before switching off the flame.
5) Pour the coconut mixture (prepared in step 2) on top of the cooked tapioca, above that put the cooked beef and its contents. Keep it on the flame for some time. When steam start to come, switch off the flame and mix all the items together with a wooden spoon. Then serve with hot in Banana Leaf.

Notes:
1. For this Biriyani we can use some side dishes like beef fry (ularthiyathu), or mango pickle and Salad.
2. For better taste we can also add cashew nuts paste to the tapioca biriyani.